Hospital patients and others who are confined to their beds use hand held portable urinals which are emptied from time to time by an attendant. These urinals must be kept somewhere within reach of the patient.
A hospital room typically includes a number of things in the immediate area of the patient's bed, such as a bedside stand, overbed table, water pitcher, waste basket, electric lines, oxygen equipment, suctioning equipment, personal care articles, flowers, and cards. The portable urinal presently in use is designed to hang from the bedside rail, but it does not hang securely and is known to fall from the rail, forcing the patient or user to set the urinal wherever space can be found, e.g. on the floor, on the bedside table, or even on the overbed table where food is served.
A portable urinal is not a very stable standing vessel. A urinal which is simply set down in the space most conveniently reached, especially in this usually crowded and cumbersome setting, is liable to be stumbled into and knocked over, and its contents spilled. When this happens, everything that comes in contact with the spilled urine is contaminated. There is then the added work and expense of cleaning up an unnecessary spill.
This relatively offhand manner in which portable urinals are generally handled contributes to the spread of nosocomial infections. Nosocomial infection is an infection acquired during hospitalization. Indeed, it is also called "hospital aquired infection".
Sterile materials, dressings, solutions, medications, and the like are often kept on the bedside table. These sterile materials can become contaminated from a urinal placed so nearby, and thus become a source of infection. This is just one example of the problem.
A proper placement for a portable urinal, one which provides upright stability, is out of the way of traffic, and is conveniently within reach of the user and attendants, is therefore to be desired.